I will be back next week!

See you next week for more post!

Our kids had so much fun this Halloween party!  We joined 3 Halloween parties where JX only joined 2 out of 3.  It was fun!  I had fun dressing the kids in costume, wishing I could also be in one too! hahaha

Anyway, I just want to share my JX’s photo as my Lion Prince.  Mind you, he never complained when he wear this furry costume, not even he was perspiring (He’s just sleepy when I took this photo thus, non-smiling face.)!  Funny nga, when we put a cap over his head when he goes out, he would usually remove it immediately.  With this costume, he did nothing to indicate that he didn’t like wearing the lion costume.  Sympathy went out to JX whenever we go trick or treat to my cousin’s event, people would admire JX in his costume and later on, comment that isn’t he uncomfortable with that?!  (Yes, I just had to accept my cousin’s invitation - for the kids…Thanks to my cousin!  I love you, cuz!  Hope you’ll still invite us next year even if you’ll have your own kids!).

For the other photo of JX in Angel costume. He looked so cute too! We were even surprised that he was also given a consolation prize like his Ahya AD.

Continuation…

As I was saying….

Tarafuku Set (P1,545). This came with 3 beef (tongue, beef meat and beef karubi which is beef ribs) , 2 pork (pork butabara w/c is belly and buta horumon w/c are intestines), 1 Wakami (seaweed) soup, choligi salad and a rice.  The set is good for 2 person but you have to order one or two more rice to satiate your appetite.  The rice really was great with the meat with its moist and plump grains.  The marinated meat was superb with or without its yakiniku sauce (with chili paste and freshly chopped garlic).

We were also tempted to try their Wagyu TokuToku Set but we decided not to…Too many meat for dinner.

Yakiniku style of cooking the bite-sized meats.  They change the griller top once in a while.

Meat sauce we loved dipping our meat!  Their yakiniku sauce with chili paste (kujijang) and fresh garlic.

What better way to order so many dishes is to meet up with friends!  That’s what we did for this foodtripping of ours!  We definitely enjoyed the food and the company.  Nice to have met up with you Chris and Shar!

Hana is where we got the dessert…neighboring restaurant inside Little tokyo that serves flavored ice shavings…we got the peach flavor (nothing to choose from since the bestseller chocolate with banana is already out of stock.).
It didn’t taste right because for me, it tasted like Benadryl cherry flavored! It tasted better with the milk but still.  Ewww…but Aidan finished it off! So much for an early sleeping time….

We’d love to go back to Uramesi Ya to check their other stuff but be sure that you bring extra clothing for you will smell after or just opt to go there at night where you’ll go home after.  Parking is another issue when dinner time comes.  No available parking fronting the restaurants.  Either you park at Makati Cinema Square (MCS) or the parking sapce of the offices beside Little Tokyo along Pasong Tamo.  You just have to give a tip to the guard. For lunch, I guess there’s only 1 option — MCS.

Thanks to my HB’s new Japanese friend that has been giving tips on where and what to eat good and authentic Japanese dishes.  Don;t you just lourv it?  Looking forward to more great Japanese food.

Uramesi Ya Yakiniku Japanese Restaurant

Little Tokyo

U485 2277 Don Chino Roces Ave.

Pasong Tamo, Makati

+632.813.2210

Another japanese food trip around Makati….can you guess where this is without googling the name of the resto?

Appetizer on the house!  Sotanghon with the variety of those balls (shrimp? or quikiam? or whatever…)  I liked this appetizer, different from the usual….uhmm…I was about to say dilis (sweet anchovies) but isn’t that the Korean freebies?  So now,  it got me thinking…do Japanese resto give anything on the house?

Toufu Salada (P190).  This were the server’s sales pitch…”Paborito ito ni Gretsen.”  (This is one of the favorite of Gretchen (who else?!)).  The other salad is Gyusyabu Salad which has beef as toppings.  Decided to go on a toufu salad as we were already having an all-meat yakiniku set.

(more…)

We’re having a Japanese craze now!

Ukokkei Ramen Ron serves the best ramen in town!  We got this tip from a Japanese friend of HB.  They serve 3 types of ramen — soy sauce-based, salt-based and miso-based soup.

While waiting for our friend, we ordered gyoza (we also know where you can get the best gyoza in town!) to fill our growling tummy a bit.  Before we knew it, the gyoza were gone in a minute!   P120/ 5 pieces.  We were hungry!

Ukkokei Miso (P300 + 5% S.C.).  Our friend, Joelle, ordered this ramen which our server recommend as the bestseller but I don’t think Joelle agreed because the bowl was still half filled.  The ramen was a miso-based soup with pork as toppings.

Ukkokei Nirra Niniku Karamiso (P360 + 5% S.C.).  We don’t usually order ramen in a Japanese resto but this resto served the best ramen so what do we get?  Ramen, of course!  This was all-vegetable soup with some spiciness.  The slices of shitake mushroom you see were not very tasty…maybe because it all went to the soup. I liked the soup for it was very flavorful but I always get distracted with the soup’s oiliness and the vegetable (I had lots of the hard parts of the petchay.) that I forgot to really take note of the flavor.   I would like to think that the oil that I was referring too was the chili oil.

Ukkokei Shoyu Koumi (P330 + 5% S.C.).  Tasted this and this was way better than mine.  The liquid travelled smoothly through my throat although HB felt it was oily too, like my soup! Good thing, I got to taste the soup because it was gone afte 5 minutes!  Yes, he was that hungry that he forgot to really share the soup as in exchange with mine.

The ramen I’ve tasted here are way better than the ramen we always order at Isshin.  It’s just too bad that they don’t have any dessert line-up where we look forward to ending our night with just a simple nata de coco or ice cream like we have at Isshin.

Ukokkei Ramen Ron

Patis Tesoro Bldg. (beside La Regalade, diagonally across Kink Cakes)

Pasay Road, Makati

Closed on 2nd & 4th Sundays of the month

When I got a text from Cecil about their restaurant, I immediately informed HB but it wasn’t until now that we tried this restaurant for several reasons (not much buzz around the town, closed when we went there past lunch hour and hesitation to try out some restaurant owned by a hotel = maybe not value for money).

Ignorant me, asked our server what Astralis meant and he told us that it was a name of this wine (oh so expensive!  Who dare to drink this? They don’t sell by the glass but by the bottle!).  I do hope this taste good as I do remember that price of a wine does not equate to a good tasting wine and of course, this is not applicable to every wine lover.

Astralis also means star.  I guess it is one of those names of a star.  Funny, I thought it meant Heart or something related to love because of the bread plate and the cloth design of the chair.  So much for my thoughts! Pfft!

Complimentary bread (Foccaccia bread with olives, sundried tomato and sea salt bread) served with butter.  The bread and butter was not a match.  The waiter took our suggestion that it is best paired with sauce such as pesto or balsamic vinaigrette with olive oil and surprisingly, our server smilingly served us with these!  Hope they’ll serve these instead of the butter.  Nice service!  Service deluxe as if you were dining at Diamond Hotel.

Baked double-broiled mushroom soup (P220+)

I was excited to try this out.  The phyllo sheets made it more exciting…but it kinda went downhill…the moment I got to taste it.  Buhuhuhu…it lacked the mushroom taste…I would have expected it to be tasty since it was even double broiled…maybe because the actual mushroom used was not of good quality.  After sipping more of the soup, HB said it tasted like monggo (bean) soup minus a hint taste of mushroom.

Sato-san’s Japanese Mentaiko Spaghetti (P460 +) spicy cod roe, nori on cream sauce.

I loved this pasta especially with nori which adds character to the dish (We asked if we could have extra nori because as you can see, it was gone after we took our forks into our mouth the 1st time).  This pasta reminded me of my younger years when I used to love cream-based pasta.  I was not yet mindful of what it would do to my body but now,  I’ve changed my preference to tomato-based pasta.  Although, I still eat the rich-based pasta on an occassional days.  The spiciness  from the cod roe was just right.  I was secretly hoping they could’ve added more!

I wish I was a good and well-practiced cook so I’ll know that this pasta was easy to make!  We’ve been had!  Wondering how I knew?  Check Chubby Hubby’s recipe on this Mentaiko pasta…I like his version of soft-boiled egg to add richness (as if the cream and mayo are not enough!).

Btw, would you know where I can buy good mentaiko?  Japanese stores?  And then I’ll add nori (I love eating nori when I was still a kid!  And it is just now that I realized it has nutritional benefits — high in fibre, vitamins, protein and minerals. It also  provides calcium and iron, strengthens the circulatory system and help lower cholesterol.) and the japanese mayo in my cart!

Chicken stuff with gorgonzola, mozzarella, and stilton (P390+) with mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini.

Trio cheese!  Nice combi.  Enjoyed every bite of the chicken where the cheese was generously spread.  Tasty!  Only complaint was the size of the chicken…Usually for the price, we’d have a quarter of a chicken.  Oh well, no can do so we just cleaned off the plate!

It was also a good decision not to order the dessert (not that I was not tempted by their Le Royale!) because we got 2 bags of dark chocolate chip cookies from Astralis (It was trick or treat day at Rockwell.).  It was yummy!  We finished it off before we can leave some pieces for AD.

If you want to try new stuff, maybe you’d like to indulge yourself a little bit…Astralis is offering wine and raclette buffet on Mondays and Thursdays.  Time to unwind especially these days!

Astralis by Diamond Hotel

R1-144 Lopez Drive

Powerplant Rockwell Center

+632.703.2688